1. Field
The present embodiments relate to techniques for regulating communication. More specifically, the present embodiments relate to techniques for accepting or rejecting requests to initiate conversations on a link in a network.
2. Related Art
A server in a network, such as the Internet or World Wide Web (WWW), may communicate data with users through a network that is multi-homed, e.g., that is connected using multiple links. In general, financial arrangements between an operator of the server and the providers who operate the links can be grouped into two categories: (1) paid-transit arrangements in which one or more providers are paid to transport data and/or (2) peering agreements in which the server operator and one or more additional providers typically agree to transport data to each other without payment. While paid-transit arrangements typically permit traffic to or from all users in the network to be communicated via so-called ‘transit’ links, so-called ‘peering’ links associated with peering agreements generally only cover traffic sent to or from those users residing on a sub-network that is operated by the respective peering partner (such as one of the additional providers) of the server operator.
In the network, routes for data packets directed to or from the server are typically determined using a Border Gateway Protocol (BGP). For example, providers of transit links may use BGP to specify a destination associated with one or more router information blocks (RIBs). In contrast, the additional peering providers typically only indicate the RIBs of users that reside on their portion sub-network because they do not want to relay traffic associated with other users in the network.
Unfortunately, it can be difficult to regulate the amount of traffic on transit links and/or peering links, which can result in a given link exceeding its capacity. The resulting overflow condition often results in degraded performance, such as re-buffering of video during video streaming. This problem can be more severe for peering links because they tend to be under provisioned compared to transit links.